Brutalist London : Lambeth Towers Illustrated Art Print

Brutalist London : Lambeth Towers Illustrated Art Print
 
This building falls on my cycle route back home, and being right at the signal, gives me a lot of time to look up and admire the block of stacked up cubes.

Designed by George Finch in 1964, approved in 1965, completed in 1972 was built on a site opposite the Imperial War Museum. 

Finch's masterpiece the Lambeth Towers is made up of 10 storeys of flats set over a luncheon club and doctor's surgery, inspired by the work of Moshe Safdie and built at the same time as Safdie's Habitat blocks for the Montreal Expo of 1967. Each flat was individually articulated within a cranked concrete frame that maximised the tight site, creating a strong, square patterning that evoked Piet Mondrian's paintings. It reminds me of Le Corbusier's Unite d'habitaiton in France, with the similar grid and block type arrangement.

Working under Lambeth's chief architect and planner Ted Hollamby, George Finch pioneered an architecture that created buildings with a mix of social provision. Lambeth Towers was a microcosm of the 1960s Welfare State. It provided affordable, high quality housing, medical facilities and a lunch club for the elderly.

Finch's last design for Lambeth was the Brixton Recreation Centre. Its stepped internal atrium connects all of the sporting facilities, achieving a sense of openness and variety, as envisioned by Finch. This much-valued facility was untouched in the riots of 1981 and through recent popular local campaigning plans for its demolition were seen off. More recently there has been mush debate about the 'regeneration' in the area, specific to the Brixton Arches.

** You might also like the Brutalist London Series, up in the shop.